The latest bizarre photo-manipulating tool to take the internet by storm is called “Deep Nostalgia,” and it uses A.I. technology to quite literally animate still photographs. The app was actually created by MyHeritage, an online genealogy platform, allowing people to imagine what their deceased ancestors may have looked like when they were alive and in motion.
It’s a bit creepy, to be sure, but MyHeritage had pure intentions. We think.
The team explains, “We’re happy to introduce Deep Nostalgia™, a groundbreaking new photo feature on MyHeritage that allows you to animate the faces of your loved ones in still photos. This new addition to our suite of photo tools produces a realistic depiction of how a person from an old photo could have moved and looked if they were captured on video.”
Of course, it didn’t take long for the internet to start using the “Deep Nostalgia” technology for their own fun, with filmmaker Abner Pastoll (Road Games, A Good Woman is Hard to Find) using it to animate the faces on classic horror movie posters. It all began with Nancy from A Nightmare on Elm Street, leading to a full thread of horror poster art come to life.
The posters for Child’s Play, Re-Animator, Evil Dead, Frankenhooker, The Silence of the Lambs and more were animated by Pastoll using the “Deep Nostalgia” tool, and it’s pretty wild to see faces we’ve only ever seen as still images suddenly blinking and moving about. The Elm Street art in particular is quite eerie, looking like Nancy has come alive and wants out of the art.
It’s a slow news day. Click into Pastoll’s thread below and be sure to check out his new film A Good Woman is Hard to Find if you get a chance, now streaming through Shudder!
I just ran the poster for A Nightmare on Elm Street through the Deep Nostalgia tool to see what it would look like to bring @LangenkampH‘s face to life… and yep, pretty sure I’m not gonna sleep tonight, or ever again pic.twitter.com/dcBcGAQ7w3
— Abner+ (@abnerpastoll) February 28, 2021